Fairy tales teach people what society expects of them, and even in modern day media, fairy tales are still used to portray the ideal person. Classical fairy tales were devoted to teaching favorable values to younger generations, especially aimed at girls. Favorable traits taught were beauty, purity, and youth. Women were additionally taught to be silent, especially in stories like The Little Mermaid. Despite the importance of purity, lust was also given as something young women should learn, which is represented well by Snow White, whose lips are red for passion. In modern media, very little has changed. Celebrities are either young or they use plastic surgery to make themselves look younger. Beauty is stressed more than ever. Even in Beauty and the Beast, the beast is drawn as an elegant lion-like figure. Young girls dress up as the latest Disney princesses for Halloween, wearing make-up at younger ages, hoping to be as pretty as Cinderella. Using fairy tales, the media tells children how they should live their lives.
Hansel and Gretel Fractured Fairy Tale
In "Hansel and Gretel" the witch may seem like an evil magnate who exploits those who wander into her territory, but is her apparent wealth really wealth to her? Was her greed really greed or was it just need? In the middle of a large forest is a large cottage made of delicacies. Inside lives a lumberjack with his family. The two children, Hansel and Gretel, call their step-mother a witch for her harsh regulations. While she cooks, the children are only allowed to play in a small clearing with a fire, but there is nothing to do in the clearing that their father had made by chopping down all of the beautiful trees. The step-mother always found valuable pearls to keep in the house, and also decorated the house in small cakes and pastries. Hansel once tried to take a string of pearls and find his way out of the forest to buy a toy oven for his sister and a box of magic tricks. When their step-mother found out about this, the "witch" made sure that Hansel and Gretel were not allowed outside at night and also locked up the pearls out of Hansel's reach. The lumberjack spends his time earning money to buy his wife ingredients for her sweets. The countryside is in a terrible famine, so it is difficult to buy food. The woodsman works so much that he lets his wife do whatever she wants about restricting the children and keeping them out of the way while she cooks.
A lost farmer named Oedipus who was gathering firewood approaches the cottage, and sees the delicacies. He tries to steal the cakes that he knows are quite valuable, especially during the ongoing famine. The step-mother rushes to the door with the realization that her cooking has finally paid off. All the family needs is a visitor so that they can eat. The lumberjack and his family were starving from the lack of humans roaming the forest. The family members are what humans would call wizards and witches who can only eat human flesh. The step-mother, delighted, asks Oedipus to help her find a batch of fresh strawberries that she left somewhere in the kitchen, but she has yet to find it with her poor eyesight. Oedipus, seeing how rich the family is, decides to steal the wealth and wants to kill the old lady. Oedipus tells the step-mother that he thinks he sees the strawberries in the oven, hoping to trick her into getting baked alive. The witch, however, knows what the farmer is thinking, and asks him to help guide her. When he gets close to the oven, she pushes him in and rapidly shuts the door to trap him. The poor witch's family finally has digestible food on the table and even Hansel and Gretel are happy about their step-mother.
Research & Archetypes
Archetypes:
Evil stepmother- wants to get rid of stepchildren
Rural/forest setting-a symbol of evil, the feeling of being lost, the feeling of fear, and unknown.
Magic/charms/disguises/spells/tricks- the witch creates foods from magic, creates the house to trick the children, disguises herself
Numbers-hansel counted the number of pebbles he dropped to follow them back home
Transformations- "The path from the production of the grain to the bread is a path of transformation of a natural product into a specifically human form of nourishment" (Dieckmann 1986).
Witch- wants to eat the children
Wee people-the children young enough to be pitied by the ducks
A lost child-2 of them actually
Tests and trials-If children hope to overcome bothersome thoughts and unwholesome impulses, the witch must die. Her death constitutes the emotional core of the tale. Only by destroying the witch can one ensure that bad parts of the self are eradicated and the good parts prevail.
Journeys and quests-accidental
Animals play an important role- birds eat bread
Good & evil are clearly defined- witch and step-mother are evil
Problems are overcome through bravery, cleverness, and other virtues- Pebbles symbolize justice.
Abused/persecuted people- poorer class is exploited even more by wealthy class
Life lesson/moral- Greed causes most of your problems, children should respect parents no matter what and have family loyalty
Abandoned children- yes
Caution-Men are often viewed as the voice of reason in older writings, and Hansel seemed to fit the role of being cautious and responsible.
Courage-didn’t give in to witch or step-mother’s wishes
Deception- house
Escape from enemy-witch
Famine-all of that starving
Jealousy-The wife was jelly of the kids
Naive or gullible child- H&G went with the witch into the house
Obedience- H&G do whatever their stepmother and witch ask of them
Parents who fail to protect their children-The father is old, struggling to provide for his family and can be considered as the King in this story. A weak-willed excuse for a father, he abandons his love for his children by meekly going along with his wife’s plan. The stepmother, like in all the other fairy tales, is evil and manipulative. She resents the children because they are not hers.
Revenge- not sure, but the stepmother dies, so maybe the father killed her for revenge; could also be that the witch and the stepmom are the same person, which would mean H&G got revenge
Weak outwitting the strong- the frail Gretel outwits the witch by asking her to climb in the oven
Wisdom through suffering- Hansel is being pumped with food, too much, but he still is wise enough to use a bone instead of his finger
Birds
White birds- white swan; white (bird) that guided H&G to Witch’s house
White trails- left trails of white pebbles and white bread
Birds ate the trails; Bird took them to witch; Bird took them home
Even though the birds led them to danger, they still led them to bounty and fortune
Symbolism:
Pebbles symbolize justice
Forest: The woods have been associated with the unknown and is famous for its demeanor to travelers. The plan for the step-mother to leave Hansel and Gretel in the forest is due to the fact that the forest is basically the best place to dump them off. The forest strands people who do not know their way and exposes them to fears and psychological insanities. It deprives them of hope, and abandoning children in a forest was probably the most popular method for survival among parents during famine and war.
Bread and cake: Bread itself symbolizes transformation, but has many metaphorical meanings in the story such as poverty and struggle. The struggles for Hansel and Gretel and their parents is greatly emphasized by the quantity of bread that they have Cake is a symbol for feasting and plenty and is a fantasy luxury for children.
White pebbles: Due to their importance as weights for scales in ancient time, pebbles symbolize justice. Pebbles were used by Hansel and Gretel in order to return from the woods after being abandoned by their parents. The return from certain death in the forest is certainly a relief for the father and Hansel and Gretel and a surprise for the step-mother, but emotional factors aside, the pebbles help to achieve what is right: a united family that sets aside physical barriers through emotional connections such as love. However, the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel is more complicated than that, but it concludes with justice through the deaths of the witch and the step-mother.
Birds: lead to witch's house after eating bread crumbs
Oven: birth and transformation, yet fire also protection against wild beasts and what ultimately kills the witch
Water: crossing of water is associated to new beginnings
A lot of the symbols here are related to transformation: the oven, the bread, and the water too.
Societal Values: Gender roles-Hansel and his father do the work (lumberjack/making a trail) while the mother is a distraction from the father taking care of his children Class-poverty is the reason that the family did not have enough food Similar modern messages in media- “Funhouse” by P!nk; Monsters Inc by Pixar;
Theme: Role in society is determined by gender not wealth, but wealth also gives you your rank and being poor will result in the most inconveniences. If a parent tells their kid(s) to do something, they should do it- “if only the wild beasts in the wood had eaten us, then at least we should have died together” (SurLaLune) The quote above does not justify its claim because that quote was used the day before the witch tried to eat Hansel, but Hansel and Gretel’s loyalty to their parents could be seen by their return to the house instead of abandonment. Another factor for consideration is that these protagonists are both under 10 years of age, so the only home they could possibly return to would be the house with their father and step-mother. Actually, it’s all about money. If you’re poor all of these terrible things will happen to you and the only way to succeed in life is to find a ton of money, and when you get money all of the evils in your life will be very dead. The lack of money is what makes people have evil intentions. The previous sentence is not necessarily true as Hansel and Gretel tries to portray the protagonists with a sense of good and the witch who possesses a dragon horde of treasures as bad, but then Hansel and Gretel take the treasures. The lack of money may not be what makes people do evil stuff since the witch wanted to eat the siblings, so they had “no choice” and took the treasure afterwards. Their “happily ever after” centered around wealth, and the dad was a jerk. Why didn’t he die along with the step-mother?
Repeated exposure to fairy tales will impart to children the knowledge that fearful situations can be met with courage and bravery. The stories will not only excite and invigorate their imaginations, but also will arm them with the weapons necessary to face their own witches and dragons.
Additional info: Whereas the initial attraction of a fairy tale may lie in its ability to enchant and entertain, its lasting value lies in its power to help children deal with the internal conflict they face in the course of growing up. Food and substance drives the plot of Hansel and Gretel. Even the witch plans on eating Hansel.
The Origin of Hansel and Gretel: The Lost Children (Les Enfants Perdus) The Grimm’s version of Hansel and Gretel is a tale of two young siblings, Hansel and Gretel, become lost in the forest. They eventually come upon a house made of sweet food, and an evil witch lives inside who secretly plots to eat them. Eventually, Hansel is able to throw the witch into a fire and they make their escape. In the earlier French version of this story titled “The Lost Children”, the witch character is instead a devil. The devil has the same intentions as the witch did, but the devil becomes tricked by the children. He solves his temporary problem and constructs a sawhorse to put the children on, and it is made to bleed the children to death. Like in the Grimm Brothers version, the children pretend that they are ignorant as to how they should mount the horse, so the devil’s wife demonstrates. When she does so, the children slit her throat and run away.
Comparison:
Both include the children
Both include an instance when one of the children kill the antagonist
Contrast:
The French version is more based around Christianity and demons than mythical beings like witches.
Connection to modern media: "Lose Yourself" Eminem The song is about the conflict between a struggling, trailer park rapper and upper-class, elitist society. One moment, capture it He's broke Mobile home back to lab again Make me king Move toward new world order Knows he's no father Prostitutes don't want him anymore, he’s cold product Can't provide right life for family Food stamps don't buy diapers Times are hard Trailer's got to go- cannot grow old in Salem's Lot
Sources and citations:
"10 Lessons Kids Can Learn from Hansel and Gretel." Live In Nanny RSS. Live In Nanny Website, 2012. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.
Heiner, Heidi Anne, and Danielle Green Barney. "The Annotated Hansel and Gretel." SurLaLune Fairy Tales. SurLaLune Fairy Tales, 27 July 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.
Schaffner, Carol. "Hansel and Gretel, Or... Always Carry a Compass." GaleNet. Galileo, 11 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
Zipes, Jack, ed. "Hansel and Gretel." The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. New York:Oxford UP, 2000. 225-27. Print.
Journal
What are the characteristics of a fairy tale?
Fairy tales are stories told to young children. There are many versions of every fairy tale because the stories are created by caretakers to teach their children values or morals that they should live by. Often told as bedtime stories, fairy tales can have happy endings or sad endings. Parents tell fairy tales about wolves in forests ready to eat children that stray from the correct path, and the wolf eats the protagonist if the parent wants the child to never wander off alone. If the parent wants the child to learn to deal with these situations, then the protagonist of the fairy tale somehow tricks the wolf and survives often slaying the wolf instead. If two children go through a forest following food and end up getting eaten by a witch, then the children are being taught not to give in to greed and desires. Otherwise, the children can cook the witch instead and be taught to follow their dreams, but this is a more modern was of telling fairy tales. It was more common for children to die in classical fairy tales because parents did not want their offspring wandering off alone. Princesses often had tragedies caused by foolish actions. Modern interpretations of fairy tales, however, focus more on happy endings caused by following dreams.
How do you see the themes of your tale represented in the film, literature, music, media of 2015.
The fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" contains themes that are portrayed in modern media such as popular songs and movies. "Hansel and Gretel" has the theme of wealth controlling a person's ability to eat and provide food for their family. The song "Lose Yourself" by Eminem portrays a similar theme. The character in the song is so poor that he has to live in a mobile home and makes illegal drugs. He is faced with the realization that he does not have the money to even buy diapers with government funding. In "Hansel and Gretel" the woodsman is of a poorer class and during the famine he does not have the money for bread. Only a few loafs remain and he is convinced by his wife that to make it last his children must be abandoned. The fairy tale also has the theme of gender deciding a person's role in society. Hansel is shown to be better at making family decisions than his sister when he finds a witty way out of every pitfall. The children are only abandoned to die when their step-mother is allowed to make decisions. In "Lose Yourself," gender does not play as much of a barrier in freedom of thought, but it does still show that in modern society men are expected to work and earn money to support the children. The main character views himself as a failure because he would not be able to provide at all for children when he cannot even provide enough for himself.
Reflection
Table of Contents
Hansel and Gretel Fractured Fairy Tale
In "Hansel and Gretel" the witch may seem like an evil magnate who exploits those who wander into her territory, but is her apparent wealth really wealth to her? Was her greed really greed or was it just need?
In the middle of a large forest is a large cottage made of delicacies. Inside lives a lumberjack with his family. The two children, Hansel and Gretel, call their step-mother a witch for her harsh regulations. While she cooks, the children are only allowed to play in a small clearing with a fire, but there is nothing to do in the clearing that their father had made by chopping down all of the beautiful trees. The step-mother always found valuable pearls to keep in the house, and also decorated the house in small cakes and pastries. Hansel once tried to take a string of pearls and find his way out of the forest to buy a toy oven for his sister and a box of magic tricks. When their step-mother found out about this, the "witch" made sure that Hansel and Gretel were not allowed outside at night and also locked up the pearls out of Hansel's reach. The lumberjack spends his time earning money to buy his wife ingredients for her sweets. The countryside is in a terrible famine, so it is diff
A lost farmer named Oedipus who was gathering firewood approaches the cottage, and sees the delicacies. He tries to steal the cakes that he knows are quite valuable, especially during the ongoing famine. The step-mother rushes to the door with the realization that her cooking has finally paid off. All the family needs is a visitor so that they can eat. The lumberjack and his family were starving from the lack of humans roaming the forest. The family members are what humans would call wizards and witches who can only eat
human flesh. The step-mother, delighted, asks Oedipus to help her find a batch of fresh strawberries that she left somewhere in the kitchen, but she has yet to find it with her poor eyesight. Oedipus, seeing how rich the family is, decides to steal the wealth and wants to kill the old lady. Oedipus tells the step-mother that he thinks he sees the strawberries in the oven, hoping to trick her into getting baked alive. The witch, however, knows what the farmer is thinking, and asks him to help guide her. When he gets close to the oven, she pushes him in and rapidly shuts the door to trap him. The poor witch's family finally has digestible food on the table and even Hansel and Gretel are happy about their step-mother.
Research & Archetypes
Archetypes:
Symbolism:
- Pebbles symbolize justice
- Forest: The woods have been associated with the unknown and is famous for its demeanor to travelers. The plan for the step-mother to leave Hansel and Gretel in the forest is due to the fact that the forest is basically the best place to dump them off. The forest strands people who do not know their way and exposes them to fears and psychological insanities. It deprives them of hope, and abandoning children in a forest was probably the most popular method for survival among parents during famine and war.
- Bread and cake: Bread itself symbolizes transformation, but has many metaphorical meanings in the story such as poverty and struggle. The struggles for Hansel and Gretel and their parents is greatly emphasized by the quantity of bread that they have Cake is a symbol for feasting and plenty and is a fantasy luxury for children.
- White pebbles: Due to their importance as weights for scales in ancient time, pebbles symbolize justice. Pebbles were used by Hansel and Gretel in order to return from the woods after being abandoned by their parents. The return from certain death in the forest is certainly a relief for the father and Hansel and Gretel and a surprise for the step-mother, but emotional factors aside, the pebbles help to achieve what is right: a united family that sets aside physical barriers through emotional connections such as love. However, the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel is more complicated than that, but it concludes with justice through the deaths of the witch and the step-mother.
- Birds: lead to witch's house after eating bread crumbs
- Oven: birth and transformation, yet fire also protection against wild beasts and what ultimately kills the witch
- Water: crossing of water is associated to new beginnings
A lot of the symbols here are related to transformation: the oven, the bread, and the water too.Societal Values:
Gender roles-Hansel and his father do the work (lumberjack/making a trail) while the mother is a distraction from the father taking care of his children
Class-poverty is the reason that the family did not have enough food
Similar modern messages in media- “Funhouse” by P!nk; Monsters Inc by Pixar;
Theme:
Role in society is determined by gender not wealth, but wealth also gives you your rank and being poor will result in the most inconveniences.
If a parent tells their kid(s) to do something, they should do it- “if only the wild beasts in the wood had eaten us, then at least we should have died together” (SurLaLune)
The quote above does not justify its claim because that quote was used the day before the witch tried to eat Hansel, but Hansel and Gretel’s loyalty to their parents could be seen by their return to the house instead of abandonment. Another factor for consideration is that these protagonists are both under 10 years of age, so the only home they could possibly return to would be the house with their father and step-mother.
Actually, it’s all about money. If you’re poor all of these terrible things will happen to you and the only way to succeed in life is to find a ton of money, and when you get money all of the evils in your life will be very dead. The lack of money is what makes people have evil intentions. The previous sentence is not necessarily true as Hansel and Gretel tries to portray the protagonists with a sense of good and the witch who possesses a dragon horde of treasures as bad, but then Hansel and Gretel take the treasures. The lack of money may not be what makes people do evil stuff since the witch wanted to eat the siblings, so they had “no choice” and took the treasure afterwards. Their “happily ever after” centered around wealth, and the dad was a jerk. Why didn’t he die along with the step-mother?
Repeated exposure to fairy tales will impart to children the knowledge that fearful situations can be met with courage and bravery.
The stories will not only excite and invigorate their imaginations, but also will arm them with the weapons necessary to face their own witches and dragons.
Additional info:
Whereas the initial attraction of a fairy tale may lie in its ability to enchant and entertain, its lasting value lies in its power to help children deal with the internal conflict they face in the course of growing up.
Food and substance drives the plot of Hansel and Gretel. Even the witch plans on eating Hansel.
The Origin of Hansel and Gretel: The Lost Children (Les Enfants Perdus)
The Grimm’s version of Hansel and Gretel is a tale of two young siblings, Hansel and Gretel, become lost in the forest. They eventually come upon a house made of sweet food, and an evil witch lives inside who secretly plots to eat them. Eventually, Hansel is able to throw the witch into a fire and they make their escape.
In the earlier French version of this story titled “The Lost Children”, the witch character is instead a devil. The devil has the same intentions as the witch did, but the devil becomes tricked by the children. He solves his temporary problem and constructs a sawhorse to put the children on, and it is made to bleed the children to death. Like in the Grimm Brothers version, the children pretend that they are ignorant as to how they should mount the horse, so the devil’s wife demonstrates. When she does so, the children slit her throat and run away.
Comparison:
Contrast:
Connection to modern media:
"Lose Yourself" Eminem
The song is about the conflict between a struggling, trailer park rapper and upper-class, elitist society.
One moment, capture it
He's broke
Mobile home
back to lab again
Make me king
Move toward new world order
Knows he's no father
Prostitutes don't want him anymore, he’s cold product
Can't provide right life for family
Food stamps don't buy diapers
Times are hard
Trailer's got to go- cannot grow old in Salem's Lot
Sources and citations:
"10 Lessons Kids Can Learn from Hansel and Gretel." Live In Nanny RSS. Live In Nanny Website, 2012. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.
Dziak, Mark. "Hansel and Gretel." GaleNet. Galileo, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
Heiner, Heidi Anne, and Danielle Green Barney. "The Annotated Hansel and Gretel." SurLaLune Fairy Tales. SurLaLune Fairy
Tales, 27 July 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.
Schaffner, Carol. "Hansel and Gretel, Or... Always Carry a Compass." GaleNet. Galileo, 11 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
Zipes, Jack, ed. "Hansel and Gretel." The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. New York:Oxford UP, 2000. 225-27. Print.
Journal
What are the characteristics of a fairy tale?
Fairy tales are stories told to young children. There are many versions of every fairy tale because the stories are created by caretakers to teach their children values or morals that they should live by. Often told as bedtime stories, fairy tales can have happy endings or sad endings. Parents tell fairy tales about wolves in forests ready to eat children that stray from the correct path, and the wolf eats the protagonist if the parent wants the child to never wander off alone. If the parent wants the child to learn to deal with these situations, then the protagonist of the fairy tale somehow tricks the wolf and survives often slaying the wolf instead. If two children go through a forest following food and end up getting eaten by a witch, then the children are being taught not to give in to greed and desires. Otherwise, the children can cook the witch instead and be taught to follow their dreams, but this is a more modern was of telling fairy tales. It was more common for children to die in classical fairy tales because parents did not want their offspring wandering off alone. Princesses often had tragedies caused by foolish actions. Modern interpretations of fairy tales, however, focus more on happy endings caused by following dreams.
How do you see the themes of your tale represented in the film, literature, music, media of 2015.
The fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" contains themes that are portrayed in modern media such as popular songs and movies. "Hansel and Gretel" has the theme of wealth controlling a person's ability to eat and provide food for their family. The song "Lose Yourself" by Eminem portrays a similar theme. The character in the song is so poor that he has to live in a mobile home and makes illegal drugs. He is faced with the realization that he does not have the money to even buy diapers with government funding. In "Hansel and Gretel" the woodsman is of a poorer class and during the famine he does not have the money for bread. Only a few loafs remain and he is convinced by his wife that to make it last his children must be abandoned. The fairy tale also has the theme of gender deciding a person's role in society. Hansel is shown to be better at making family decisions than his sister when he finds a witty way out of every pitfall. The children are only abandoned to die when their step-mother is allowed to make decisions. In "Lose Yourself," gender does not play as much of a barrier in freedom of thought, but it does still show that in modern society men are expected to work and earn money to support the children. The main character views himself as a failure because he would not be able to provide at all for children when he cannot even provide enough for himself.